by A. J. Smith
Then the corridor changed. I’d stopping looking ahead, preferring to stare at my feet, and the sudden change caught me by surprise. It was a crossroads, though every direction was identical. At the mid-point, sitting in a pool of stagnant water, was a stone plinth that almost caused me to stumble. It reached my waist and held three objects, though I doubted any of it was real. A sheathed longsword, a suit of plate armour, and a small, onyx figurine. The steel should have drawn my eyes, but I found them indistinct and picked up the figurine. The carved image brought to mind an octopus, a frog, and a man, and I believed that I was looking at a modest rendering of the Waking God.
You are dead.
It was a thousand voices, speaking at once, but I could see no one along the eldritch corridors. The sound echoed, changing pitch and sending a tiny current through the water.
Why are you dead?
My face twitched in anger. I’d failed. How could I have failed? Jack was a Winterlord, but still a lesser man and I’d allowed him to kill me. “I let sentiment blind my judgement,” I replied, almost spitting the words. “I want another chance. I am better than this!”
You are dead. You will remain dead. Now don your armour… and draw your sword.
The figurine was suddenly hot in my hand, and I dropped it onto the plinth. I shook my head and slowly focused on the plate armour and sheathed blade. I gasped in recognition, and quickly swept up Zephyr from the flat, stone platform. It was exactly as I remembered, though the blade was now a glossy black. Excitedly, I drew it from the scabbard and grasped the hilt with both hands. It made me feel powerful again.
I stowed my sword and lifted the armour. It was finely forged steel, with veins of silver and gold and a subtle green tinge to the metal. I held the breastplate and saw an inner shirt of pulsing, green wyrd. The energy was immense, though not sufficient to bring me back from the dead… but it could maintain my form and my mind.
Rejoice, for death is not the end. You will be undead. You will live forever, as the Forever King… or for as long as you serve the true master. You are the saviour of this land.
I straightened, pushing out my chest and clenching my teeth. I’d found my true destiny, in spite of the ignorance surrounding me. I was the only power the Eastron needed. I was always the strongest and most noble, but now I was blessed with power beyond mortal imagining.
My hands shook as I started to belt on the plate armour. It was difficult with no attendants, but I managed to fasten the straps and secure the breastplate. The inner shirt of rotten, green wyrd snaked into my body, with broad tentacles cradling each of my internal organs. The wounds in my back and chest disappeared, and every muscle was strengthened, as veins of rotten energy wove themselves through my body. Everything of Oliver Dawn Claw was dead and he was reborn in the glorious chaos of the Waking God. My eyes went wide and I laughed, loud and clear. At the edges of my perception I saw endless vistas of terror and beauty, comprised of alien landscapes and forms unknown to mortal eyes. As my body was changed, so was my mind opened. I understood… I understood that my realm of form was a drop of sweat in the boundless ocean of forever. And now, I had one foot in that ocean and all mortal creatures would obey my command… or die.
You must return. The golden bird is now yours to command.
I stopped laughing and took a moment to dampen my euphoria. I was needed in the realm of form. There was a war to fight and armies with no supreme commander. Finding Silver Jack and flaying him alive would have to wait. My new subjects needed me. I was to be their saviour.
With my new armour and my old sword, I turned from the plinth and closed my eyes. I felt a gentle gust of wind and a miasma of distant aromas, then the distinctive feeling of breaking the glass. The endless corridors had not been in the void and I struggled to comprehend my route back to the realm of form, but I was elated nonetheless. I could trust in the Waking God to lead me along the true path.
Then I felt grass beneath my feet and opened my eyes. It was early morning, with a low sun and a crisp southerly wind. I was standing on a vast grassland, with trees and a river to the north, and a solid, stone fortress to the west. All around me were ranks of black-armoured warriors, with tall shields and wide-bladed partisan spears. Their helms were forged into the likeness of an owl, and a similar design, wreathed in green, was emblazoned on every breastplate. They were Dark Brethren void legionnaires, thousands of them.
From their ranks, closest to the fort, came three people, a woman and two men. I recognized all of them and smiled at my closest friend. Santago Cyclone stood between Alexis Wind Claw and Yanos Wolf Bane. The Bloodied Harp showed no surprise at my presence and rushed forwards to greet me warmly, only to pause and narrow his eyes.
“King Oliver… you look… different,” said Santago, peering at my face.
I frowned at him and touched a hand to my cheek. The skin was ice-cold and I could feel my facial bones, close to the surface. I rubbed a hand over my head and felt no hair. I looked down at my hands and saw rotten, green veins and no fingernails. I laughed again.
“You are my good friend,” I chuckled. “I do not wish my appearance to disturb you.”
He put a hand on my shoulder and I felt genuine love from him. “Nothing about you would ever disturb me,” he replied. Turning sharply, Santago addressed the void legion in a loud, clear voice. “Our saviour has arrived… our king stands before us. The Forever King, to whom every mortal will bow.”
In unison, five thousand warriors took a knee. The sound was almost deafening, but the show of adoration sent a tingle down my spine. They were the first soldiers in the immense army I would build, and they would drive cold steel through the heart of everything that stood against me and the dominion of the Waking God.
I drew Black Zephyr and surveyed my army. Everyone but Yanos and Alexis were kneeling, and I sent a wave of energy over the ranks of void legionnaires, making sure they felt my power and feared me above all things. I then strode towards the two standing Dark Brethren. Both had tried to kill me at the Silver Parliament, and I weighed their fates.
“It is a fine morning,” I said, smiling down at them. “A morning of possibilities, and new beginnings to new stories. Would you not agree?”
Alexis Wind Claw had a spiteful face, with cruel angles at her cheeks and mouth. I knew she was powerful with the wyrd of the Waking God, but compared to me she was a petty child, playing at nobility. Yanos Wolf Bane was just a soldier, doing what he was told, and sadistic enough to enjoy it.
“One of you will die,” I stated. “Though your intentions in trying to kill me were just, you should have seen that I was destined for much more.”
“Kill him,” cried Alexis, dropping to her knees, and pawing at me. “The Waking God values my brother and I, we are his devoted servants… now and always. I am pledged to you, my king.”
“And you?” I asked, looking at Yanos, the commander of the tenth void legion. He’d stabbed me in the side, and taken me closer to death than anyone but Silver Jack. “Are you going to plead for your life?”
“I am not,” he replied, removing his helmet, and throwing it to the grass. He bowed his head, and drew a slim dirk from his belt. “I cannot live with the dishonour of what I did to you, my king. I ask only that I am remembered.”
“You will be remembered,” I conceded. “Now end your life.”
The Dark Brethren void legionnaire drew the dirk across his throat and savagely ended his own life, hacking at his neck, as he would strike at a hated foe. He fell to the grass and twitched, snarling at the air, but continuing to cut. If he’d not died so quickly, I suspected he’d have cut his own head off in shame and dishonour.
“That was devotion,” I roared. “I expect it of each of you.” I straightened, rising to my full height. No one here was close to my size, and I felt like a giant amongst men.
Alexis stood, with a euphoric grin on her face. “And Snake Guard?” she asked. “Marius Cyclone? Can we kill them all?”
“All but M
arius,” I replied. “You will kill every Outrider Knight and burn everything you don’t kill. You will then send warriors into the Wood of Web and end any Pure One you find… but the Stranger… he will be brought to me. He seeks to start a rebellion and I will have him sliced, seasoned and cooked. His flesh will be presented to me on a golden plate and I will dine on him for weeks.” I bared my teeth at her, and felt a deep longing to consume the Stranger’s flesh.
The oldest stories tell of gods.
In dusty old scrolls and oft-forgotten legends, there are names few remember.
The Sea Wolves refuse to remember.
The Winterlords have no need of their memories.
The Dark Brethren killed their memories in prose and arrogance.
The Kneeling Wolves closed their eyes until they forgot.
But the Sundered Wolves remembered, for one of their number had seen.
In the Bright Lands we worshipped gods.
Before we were the Eastron, we served the Giants.
We served the Death Bear, the Pale Knight, the Earth Shaker, the Great Dragon.
These were our gods, though we were not happy in our worship.
From “Penitenziagite” by Thomas Knows Everything, the First Lord of Rust.
PART TEN
Adeline Brand aboard Halfdan’s Revenge
28
Jaxon Ice killed Young Green Eyes before the chaos spawn attacked the Severed Hand. The Wisp had been possessed, and thrown my lover against a wall, where his back was broken. At my insistence, spirit-masters had tended to him, but the damage had been too severe and he never regained consciousness.
“Do I feel dead to you?” breathed the Pure One, kissing my neck, and stroking his hands down my naked back.
“No,” I gasped, “you feel like everything I ever needed.”
We’d been together for hours. We’d fucked, we’d talked, we’d cried, and we’d laughed, but mostly we’d kissed. For some reason it was all I could think about. I loved everything else, but the feel of his lips was like coming home. Perhaps we were really at Swordfish Bay, on a quiet night at the Severed Hand. Perhaps I’d missed a duellist’s meeting with the Wolf’s Bastard, and skulked my way to the Pure One hovel on the Bright Coast. Perhaps Arthur was swearing at my absence like a petulant idiot, and Jaxon was looking the other way, trying not to let on that he knew I was ignoring my duties to fuck a Pure One. Perhaps I’d never heard of the Sunken God, and the Eastron were flourishing.
“I think this is the last time,” whispered Young Green Eyes. “Things feel different.”
“Things feel better,” I replied. “I think my mind is giving me a final gift. After everything it’s put me through… it’s the least it can do.”
He laughed against my lips, pulling me tight against him. “And when you leave, will your mind let you remember me?”
“Every part of me will remember you,” I said. “If it weren’t for you, I’d have gone mad… or done something I couldn’t take back.” I thought for a moment. “There were times I could have killed Driftwood or Kieran out of sheer irritation. I snapped at Tomas Red Fang, I was rude to Tasha… I don’t know, thirty or so times. If Rys had been here, I guarantee he’d have called my name by now.”
A gust of wind caught the side of the hovel, sending the shutters inwards, with a woody creak. We’d been too occupied to notice that the weather had turned blustery, with a sharp wind from the south.
“Spirits are restless tonight,” said Young Green Eyes, pulling a blanket over the two of us. “There is a cruel wind.”
“Shut up,” I scoffed. “Your Mirralite hocus pocus hurts my ears.”
He stared at me. He was smiling, but the expression now had some distance to it. “My Mirralite hocus pocus is far older that your Eastron wyrd.”
The wind increased in strength, and the shutters clattered against the interior walls. My eyes were drawn away from my lover, and I saw a sparkling black night sky. When I turned back, Young Green Eyes was gone. One instant I’d been in his arms, the next I was alone in a cold bed, as if he’d never been here. I looked down and saw that I was wearing ship-leathers. I slowly curled into a ball and wept, with a hundred delusions crashing down around my head.
Adeline Brand
I looked up sharply and saw an opaque blue spirit. My body was trembling, but I wiped my eyes, and dragged myself into a seated position against the wall. The spirit was a wolf, with frothy water around each of its paws. After saying my name, it padded back and forth in front of me. It was a messenger spirit.
The Pure One hovel slowly fell away and I found myself in a cabin, aboard Halfdan’s Revenge. I was awake and exhausted, but I felt like myself. In fact, I felt too much like myself… I felt fucking terrible, like I was suffering from a stubborn hangover. The spirit was still there and I balked at its presence. I had a new appreciation for the power such creatures could wield over mortal men and women, though I was not so foolish as to ignore a message.
“Speak your words and leave,” I said, gruffly.
Last Port has fallen. The sea rises.
I stared at the spectral wolf. It smelled of salt water and fresh air, though its muzzle was pointed downwards, as if the spirit was afraid or sorrowful. It took a few moments for me to process its message and discount the chances of trickery. I wanted to think it was a lie, that perhaps the Sunken God had found a way to coerce the wolf spirits of the sea. But as soon as it was spoken, the spirit showed me that it was true. I saw crumbling stone walls and a panicked, helpless population of warriors, shown all in one go how petty their strength was. The last great fortress of the Sea Wolves, built on the Sea of Stars, was no more. It had been erased with the ease of sweeping dust from a table. My father, Mikael Brand, called the Battle Brand, was dead.
*
The captain’s cabin swayed gently from side to side, though not so much as to stop the two of us glaring at each other across the table. Tynian Driftwood was good at glaring. Perhaps it was the shock of red hair, the forked beard, and the overly-bushy eyebrows. It was said that the Wolf’s Bastard could glare like no other Sea Wolf, but perhaps he’d never been as annoyed as the captain of the Revenge. He’d arrived at the Severed Hand, hoping to find his family alive, like all of his crew. Then he’d followed me to the Bay of Bliss, and through the void to the Starry Sky. He’d complained, both in front of me and behind my back, but he’d never thrown a punch or disobeyed me. And now I had to deliver the news that Last Port, his home, had been destroyed by the minions of the Sunken God.
“I need to tell you something,” I said, after an eternity of glaring.
“Just one thing?” he countered. “How about why the Sundered Wolves appear to be sailing south with us? Or why we’re loading barrels of black dust into the hold, with strict instructions to keep them away from fire?” He fiddled with his beard, trying to frame his various questions into a single, unifying statement of being pissed off. “Or maybe what happened in the Tower of Rust and why your bitch levels have decreased?”
I nodded, assessing that each one of his questions was a fair one. He stood from his seat. I wished for him to pour us each a mug of ale, but instead he paced back and forth, hands clasped behind his back. I let him pace, knowing that, under less bizarre circumstances, the captain and I would have been friends.
“Last Port’s gone,” I blurted out, realizing there was no ideal time for such news. “Spirits have confirmed to Tomas Red Fang. Frogspawn… enough to eat the walls and consume the people. My father’s gone. They’re all gone. I’m sorry.” I gulped, feeling a tear creep from my eye.
His bearded face fell into a disbelieving frown. He was an elder Sea Wolf, and like me, he knew the truth when he heard it. He’d not lost a father, but he had lost a home. Unlike many of his crew, Tynian Driftwood was born and raised at Last Port, and its destruction was not something he could easily process. I saw his eyes flicker through emotions, until a final realization seemed to dawn, much as it had with me… the only remaining
Sea Wolves were now aboard two hundred ships, sailing into the Sea of Stars. We had no hold to call our own.
After a moment, he grunted, pushing away his grief and locking eyes with me. “Okay,” he stated. “Okay, Last Port is gone… the Severed Hand is gone. Where the fuck does that leave us? And where the fuck does it leave the fleet?” He pinched the bridge of his nose as he paced back and forth. Within his demeanour was anger, denial and much regret, though I admired his stoicism.
“Tynian, sit down,” I said.
He stopped pacing. The cabin surged, rolling on a sudden tide and making everything creak. The Revenge was still at anchor, with dozens of hungover Sea Wolves dragging themselves away from the Starry Sky. Whatever else the Sundered Wolves could be accused of, they certainly brewed good beer. Fifty of Rage Breaker’s people had joined us, filling gaps in the crew, with the elder herself insisting on coming with us.
“Very well,” said Driftwood, resuming his seat opposite me. “The crew are nearly all back. We have black dust attached to ballistae bolts, and we have repaired and reinforced sails.” He paused, chewing on his beard. “And we are now members of an endangered people. So, Adeline Brand, where are we bound?”
I cleared my throat, momentarily musing on my name and how I no longer enjoyed the title of Alpha Wolf. “I was going to address the whole crew. Care to stand next to me as I do it?”
He looked down and chuckled. I couldn’t tell if it was gallows humour, nervous laughter, or the prelude to a punch, but it lasted a little too long to be genuine amusement. “Interesting,” he said, between chuckles. “Siggy and Kieran said you were different… and you really are. You’re not the Alpha Wolf I met. She was a fucking bitch. You’re just a normal bitch.” He smiled a pragmatic smile. “I was born at Last Port, but this ship has been my home for almost thirty years. These people are my family.” He swept an arm towards his cabin door. “After you, Mistress Brand. Let’s remain Sea Wolves for a little while longer.”